Just started watching but I thought others would like it as well. About an hour long.

Well looks like this is just part one. This one should be sinking of the Hood. Trying to find part 2 now

Yesterday was the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland where three other British battle cruisers were destroyed in the exact same way as HMS Hood.

HMS Queen Mary exploding (HMS Lion in front)


HMS Indefatigable (you can see the bow rising as she is sinking and to the right what is probably the stern section still briefly afloat)



And HMS Invincible (blown in half with bow and stern resting on the sea floor before sinking).



Also HMS Lion seen in the first photo would have suffered a similar fate had not the Royal Marine officer in charge of his gun turret that had been hit ordered the magazine flooded he was in to prevent a cataclysmic explosion from destroying the ship. He was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.

"There seems to be something wrong with out bloody ships today."

Yep, as the commentator in the video pointed out. Hood was the end of a evolutionary dead end that the Brits should have abandoned after Jutland. I could see the battle cruiser being good as a secondary ship of the line but not a main focus for building the foundation of your fleet.

Ironically, one of the better uses for battlecruisers would have been commerce raiding. Even once the convoy system was in place, most escorts were destroyers, maybe a scattering of cruisers, both of which BCs would easily outgun.

But the Royal Navy didn't really need to undertake that mission, while the Germans did.

The Battle Cruisers at Jutland were destroyed because of the way they were handling ammunition. They had brought on extra ammunition and powder bags (cordite) and it wasn't to properly stored. This was due to the British admiralty emphasis on increased rates of fire. The Germans even noted that the British BC's were really fast.

Being fast meant using short cuts. Short cuts trumped safety.

The Hood was lost due to "lucky shot' for lack of a better description.

could that lucky shot happen with a more armored ship? I think it is possible but unlikely. The tradeoff for speed is better suited for ships used in harassing roles vs ships used for sustained capital ship engagement.

AgBQ-00 said:

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could that lucky shot happen with a more armored ship? I think it is possible but unlikely. The tradeoff for speed is better suited for ships used in harassing roles vs ships used for sustained capital ship engagement.

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That is what will keep the debate about Hood going for another 100 years.

The Germans had a BC shot to pieces at Jutland and nearly sunk before it reached port and it survived.

The Kirishima was a Japanese Battle Cruisier that didn't far well in a gun fight with Battleships. It was upgraded to a Battleship with additional armor being added in a refit in the 1930's. Its armor was easily penetrated by the Washington's 16 inch guns at 5,000 yards. It also blew up from a magazine explosion.

Battle Cruisers were not intended to be in the the line of battle with battleships. They were intended as fast, powerful scouts that could take on anything short of a battleship and could run from any battleship then afloat. They traded armor for speed (Fischer said "speed is my armor") and generally longer range guns so they could remain in a "stand off" type situation against anyone other than the bigger gunned battleships.

The German battlecruisers were better armored and had better compartmentalization making them more survivable than the RN battlecruisers ("the first duty of a ship is to remain afloat"). However, they were slower, had smaller guns and shorter gun ranges. The German battlecruisers initially had some of the ammunition storage and ammunition handling shortcomings the RN battlecruisers did. Hipper learned of these shortcomings first hand at the Battle of Dogger Bank against Beatty's battlecruisers. The damaged German battlecruisers survived (except for Blucher which really was a large Armored Cruiser and not a real battlecruiser) and the Germans learned the lesson the RN got taught later at Jutland.

Other telling shortcomings of the RN was that they used an inferior range finder/shot "computer" than the Germans (so Germans could engage more accurately at range, thus somewhat offsetting the RN advantage) and British armor piecing shells had a tendency to "shatter" on impact rather than penetrating deep, then exploding. So, though the RN guns were hitting, they weren't killing efficiently. Rate of fire was considered so important to the RN, that as mentioned before, they took safety shortcuts with ammunition storage and handling in order to increase the rate of fire. They propped open fire-proof doors, removed flash-proof scuttles in the powder handling system and stacked ready ammunition in both turrets and turret lobbies...essentially creating a chain of powder right into the magazines.

We could go into Beatty's impetuousness and wrong use of his battlecruisers in their intended role which played a large part in getting so many of them destroyed, but that would take awhile.

HMS Hood missed her armor and system upgrades prior to WWII because she spent so much time abroad and was very well known. She should have never tried to trade blows with the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in the manner she did (e.g. like a line of battle ship)

Same experience for me. Hoping I can find it somewhere else.

Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

nortex97 said:

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Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

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Large caliber projectiles hitting steel ships is not a human friendly atmosphere. There was a reason that there were numerous buckets of sand on gun decks during the age of the wooden ship o' the line. They weren't for putting out fires...

Rabid Cougar said:

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nortex97 said:

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Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

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Large caliber projectiles hitting steel ships is not a human friendly atmosphere. There was a reason that there were numerous buckets of sand on gun decks during the age of the wooden ship o' the line. They weren't for putting out fires...

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That was mercifully quick compared to the ones who made it off that inferno and into the freezing water and over the awaiting British rescue ships only to watch them pull up the lifelines and sail away leaving hundreds to die of hypothermia.

Good comments. Made me scan my youtube history;





After the sinking it is certainly questionable at the very least as to the reasons the Brits withdrew. War is hell.

JABQ04 said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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nortex97 said:

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Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

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Large caliber projectiles hitting steel ships is not a human friendly atmosphere. There was a reason that there were numerous buckets of sand on gun decks during the age of the wooden ship o' the line. They weren't for putting out fires...

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That was mercifully quick compared to the ones who made it off that inferno and into the freezing water and over the awaiting British rescue ships only to watch them pull up the lifelines and sail away leaving hundreds to die of hypothermia.

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better than being eaten by sharks....

There's a reason I joined the Army.

Amen brother! I walked into the Naval ROTC room at the Corps indoctrination to raise my right hand and something made me walk out and then go into the next room and raise my hand. That's how I entered the Army. Love me some terra firma.

It was a good documentary but I will admit I am now spoiled on the no nonsense YouTube docs. The dramatic effects, music, pauses, writing, etc gets real old, real fast for me. Just not my cup of tea these days. I want information when it comes to history stuff, not a dramatic buildup to a commercial break.

Just me though.

Eliminatus said:

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It was a good documentary but I will admit I am now spoiled on the no nonsense YouTube docs. The dramatic effects, music, pauses, writing, etc gets real old, real fast for me. Just not my cup of tea these days. I want information when it comes to history stuff, not a dramatic buildup to a commercial break.

Just me though.

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So I guess Victory At Sea is permanently off your list ...

Rabid Cougar said:

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JABQ04 said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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nortex97 said:

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Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

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Large caliber projectiles hitting steel ships is not a human friendly atmosphere. There was a reason that there were numerous buckets of sand on gun decks during the age of the wooden ship o' the line. They weren't for putting out fires...

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That was mercifully quick compared to the ones who made it off that inferno and into the freezing water and over the awaiting British rescue ships only to watch them pull up the lifelines and sail away leaving hundreds to die of hypothermia.

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better than being eaten by sharks....

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Like those from the Indianapolis

post deleted

nortex97 said:

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Good comments. Made me scan my youtube history;





After the sinking it is certainly questionable at the very least as to the reasons the Brits withdrew. War is hell.

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. There were reports of submarines in the area which IIRC were actually true. The Brits didn't want to get torpedoed picking up survivors.

Old RV Ag said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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JABQ04 said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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nortex97 said:

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Not that any battleship sinking is pleasant, but many of those guys on the Bismark really did suffer a miserable death, it seems. Nazi's, yes, but still.

---

Large caliber projectiles hitting steel ships is not a human friendly atmosphere. There was a reason that there were numerous buckets of sand on gun decks during the age of the wooden ship o' the line. They weren't for putting out fires...

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That was mercifully quick compared to the ones who made it off that inferno and into the freezing water and over the awaiting British rescue ships only to watch them pull up the lifelines and sail away leaving hundreds to die of hypothermia.

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better than being eaten by sharks....

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Like those from the Indianapolis

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Yep or spend days on a life raft under a blazing sun and die of dehydration and thirst.

Nice tune